Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
20 Kopecks OGPU Special Purpose Camps
| Issuer | OGPU (Special Purpose Camps) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1929 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Rectangular |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Brown letterpress on green guilloche underprint. Large numeral '20' at centre flanked by 'КОПЕЕК' on either side, set within an elaborate rosette guilloche. Title inscription across the top, two facsimile signatures with titles at lower left and right, date '1929' at bottom centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Принимается в платежи от заключенных исключительно в учреждениях и предприятиях Лагерей Особого Назначения ОГПУ Никакие заявления об утере расчетных квитанций во внимание не принимаются ПОДДЕЛКА ПРЕСЛЕДУЕТСЯ ПО ЗАКОНУ (Translation: Accepted for payments from prisoners exclusively in institutions and enterprises of the Special Purpose Camps of the OGPU. No statements regarding the loss of payment receipts will be taken into consideration. Forgery is punishable by law.) |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The OGPU Special Purpose Camps — Lageria Osobogo Naznacheniya, or SLON in its Russian acronym — operated a closed internal economy across their Arctic and Siberian installations. Camp scrip was issued to prisoners and, in some camps, to free workers and guards, as a mechanism to control purchasing within camp canteens and stores. It had no value outside the wire.
The 1929 date places this issue in the early Solovetsky camp system, before the Gulag was formally reorganized under OGPU administration in 1930 and then transferred to the NKVD in 1934. Survival rates for camp scrip are low — it was not hoarded, not saved, and actively destroyed or confiscated during transfers between camps.